In the field of telephony services communications centers also termed call-in centers are used by enterprises to service clients. An example of such a center might be a technical support group of a computer manufacturer where clients call in to gain technical assistance.
State-of-art communications centers have connection to the well-known public-switched-telephony-network (PSTN) for receiving connection-oriented-switched-telephony (COST) calls. These centers also often have connection to the well-known Internet network, and perhaps connection to a variety of wireless telephone networks.
In communication networks of today, calls handled between major communications carriers may be exchanged digitally, either as COST calls, or in some newer cases, as voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) or Internet protocol network telephony (IPNT), also termed data network telephony (DNT).
One with skill in the art of modern telecommunications will appreciate that calls sourcing from anywhere in network or sub-network may be routed in between networks and connected to a destination in a network or sub-network in a seamless fashion as a dedicated connection or as a shared-bandwidth connection.
In communications center architecture known to the inventor, telephone calls into the center may, in some cases, be intercepted at the network level and routed to individual agents within the center along with data about the call and caller. This may be accomplished by providing a separate data network accessible to the communications center and accessible to the local switch handling calls for the center. For example, a computer-telephony-integration (CTI) processor may be connected to the local telephony switch handling calls for the center. Interactive-voice-response (IVR) technology may also be provided to interact with a caller at the point of the switch to identify the caller and determine the purpose for the call.
Within the communications center, a central office switch may also be enhanced with a CTI processor. The two CTI processors, one at network level, and one within the center, may be linked together via a separate data network. Using this technique, calls may be routed at the level of the network and data about the call and caller can be forwarded to an agent ahead of the actual call. Assuming the call is a PSTN incoming call, the target agent (the agent the call is routed to) can have data about the call and caller may appear on a computer display screen perhaps seconds before he or she answers the call.
While this technology greatly enhances customer service for callers, it requires interaction with each caller via IVR or equivalent technologies and the supporting data network set-up between network level switches and the communications center. Moreover, if the caller is calling from a wireless network the amount of time translating the IVR interface and navigating a long menu or series of voice prompts may consume valuable minutes. Likewise, a wireless caller may have call blocking services wherein standard techniques for determining a source number for a call are not successful in revealing the caller's telephone number. In many of these cases, the only reference a destination has as to the ID of a caller is a virtual telephone number of a particular telephone carrier.
What is clearly needed is a system and method for acquiring caller ID of a wireless caller without tying up the caller with lengthy pre-connect interaction before routing while still enabling agent access to ID and additional data about the caller.